Resurrecting Hitomi for Decaying Dark Matter and Forecasting Leading Sensitivity for XRISM.

The Hitomi x-ray satellite mission carried unique high-resolution spectrometers that were set to revolutionize the search for sterile neutrino dark matter (DM) by looking for narrow x-ray lines arising from DM decays. Unfortunately, the satellite was lost shortly after launch, and to date the only analysis using Hitomi for DM decay used data taken towards the Perseus cluster. In this work we present a significantly more sensitive search from an analysis of archival Hitomi data towards blank sky locations, searching for DM decaying in our own Milky Way. The recently launched XRISM satellite has nearly identical soft-x-ray spectral capabilities to Hitomi; we project the full-mission sensitivity of XRISM for analyses of their future blank-sky data, and we find that XRISM will have the leading sensitivity to decaying DM for masses between roughly 1 to 18 keV, with important implications for sterile neutrino and heavy axionlike particle DM scenarios.

Sensitivity of Spin-Precession Axion Experiments.

We study the signal and background that arise in nuclear magnetic resonance searches for axion dark matter, finding key differences with the existing literature. We find that spin-precession instruments are much more sensitive than what has been previously estimated in a sizable range of axion masses, with sensitivity improvement of up to a factor of 100 using a ^{129}Xe sample. This improves the detection prospects for the QCD axion, and we estimate the experimental requirements to reach this motivated target. Our results apply to both the axion electric and magnetic dipole moment operators.

Irreducible Axion Background.

Searches for dark matter decaying into photons constrain its lifetime to be many orders of magnitude larger than the age of the Universe. A corollary statement is that the abundance of any particle that can decay into photons over cosmological timescales is constrained to be much smaller than the cold dark-matter density. We show that an irreducible freeze-in contribution to the relic density of axions is in violation of that statement in a large portion of the parameter space. This allows us to set stringent constraints on axions in the mass range 100 eV-100 MeV. At 10 keV our constraint on a photophilic axion is g_{aγγ}≲8.1×10^{-14} GeV^{-1}, almost 3 orders of magnitude stronger than the bounds established using horizontal branch stars; at 100 keV our constraint on a photophobic axion coupled to electrons is g_{aee}≲8.0×10^{-15}, almost 4 orders of magnitude stronger than the present results. Although we focus on axions, our argument is more general and can be extended to, for instance, sterile neutrinos.

Novel Search for High-Frequency Gravitational Waves with Low-Mass Axion Haloscopes.

Gravitational waves (GWs) generate oscillating electromagnetic effects in the vicinity of external electric and magnetic fields. We discuss this phenomenon with a particular focus on reinterpreting the results of axion haloscopes based on lumped-element detectors, which probe GWs in the 100 kHz-100 MHz range. Measurements from ABRACADABRA and SHAFT already place bounds on GWs, although the present strain sensitivity is weak. However, we demonstrate that the sensitivity scaling with the volume of such instruments is significant-faster than for axions-and so rapid progress will be made in the future. With no modifications, DMRadio-m^{3} will have a GW strain sensitivity of h∼10^{-20} at 200 MHz. A simple modification of the pickup loop used to readout the induced magnetic flux can parametrically enhance the GW sensitivity, particularly at lower frequencies.

Erratum: Flavor Constraints from Unitarity and Analyticity [Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 081601 (2020)].

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.081601.

Deep Search for Decaying Dark Matter with XMM-Newton Blank-Sky Observations.

Sterile neutrinos with masses in the keV range are well-motivated extensions to the Standard Model that could explain the observed neutrino masses while also making up the dark matter (DM) of the universe. If sterile neutrinos are DM then they may slowly decay into active neutrinos and photons, giving rise to the possibility of their detection through narrow spectral features in astrophysical x-ray data sets. In this Letter, we perform the most sensitive search to date for this and other decaying DM scenarios across the mass range from 5 to 16 keV using archival XMM-Newton data. We reduce 547 Ms of data from both the MOS and PN instruments using observations taken across the full sky and then use this data to search for evidence of DM decay in the ambient halo of the Milky Way. We determine the instrumental and astrophysical baselines with data taken far away from the Galactic Center, and use Gaussian process modeling to capture additional continuum background contributions. No evidence is found for unassociated x-ray lines, leading us to produce the strongest constraints to date on decaying DM in this mass range.

Search for Low-Mass Axion Dark Matter with ABRACADABRA-10 cm.

Two of the most pressing questions in physics are the microscopic nature of the dark matter that comprises 84% of the mass in the Universe and the absence of a neutron electric dipole moment. These questions would be resolved by the existence of a hypothetical particle known as the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) axion. In this work, we probe the hypothesis that axions constitute dark matter, using the ABRACADABRA-10 cm experiment in a broadband configuration, with world-leading sensitivity. We find no significant evidence for axions, and we present 95% upper limits on the axion-photon coupling down to the world-leading level g_{aγγ}<3.2×10^{-11} GeV^{-1}, representing one of the most sensitive searches for axions in the 0.41-8.27 neV mass range. Our work paves a direct path for future experiments capable of confirming or excluding the hypothesis that dark matter is a QCD axion in the mass range motivated by string theory and grand unified theories.

Flavor Constraints from Unitarity and Analyticity.

We use unitarity and analyticity of scattering amplitudes to constrain fermionic operators in the standard model effective field theory. For four-fermion operators at mass dimension 8, we scatter flavor superpositions in fixed standard model representations and find the Wilson coefficients to be constrained so that their contraction with any pair of pure density matrices is positive. These constraints imply that flavor-violating couplings are upper bounded by their flavor-conserving cousins. For instance, LEP data already appears to preclude certain operators in upcoming µâ†’3e measurements.

Galactic Center Excess in a New Light: Disentangling the γ-Ray Sky with Bayesian Graph Convolutional Neural Networks.

A fundamental question regarding the Galactic Center excess (GCE) is whether the underlying structure is pointlike or smooth, often framed in terms of a millisecond pulsar or annihilating dark matter (DM) origin for the emission. We show that Bayesian neural networks (NNs) have the potential to resolve this debate. In simulated data, the method is able to predict the flux fractions from inner Galaxy emission components to on average ∼0.5%. When applied to the Fermi photon-count map, the NN identifies a smooth GCE in the data, suggestive of the presence of DM, with the estimates for the background templates being consistent with existing results.

First Results from ABRACADABRA-10 cm: A Search for Sub-µeV Axion Dark Matter.

The axion is a promising dark matter candidate, which was originally proposed to solve the strong-CP problem in particle physics. To date, the available parameter space for axion and axionlike particle dark matter is relatively unexplored, particularly at masses m_{a}≲1 µeV. ABRACADABRA is a new experimental program to search for axion dark matter over a broad range of masses, 10^{-12}≲m_{a}≲10^{-6} eV. ABRACADABRA-10 cm is a small-scale prototype for a future detector that could be sensitive to the QCD axion. In this Letter, we present the first results from a 1 month search for axions with ABRACADABRA-10 cm. We find no evidence for axionlike cosmic dark matter and set 95% C.L. upper limits on the axion-photon coupling between g_{aγγ}<1.4×10^{-10} and g_{aγγ}<3.3×10^{-9} GeV^{-1} over the mass range 3.1×10^{-10}-8.3×10^{-9} eV. These results are competitive with the most stringent astrophysical constraints in this mass range.

Search for Dark Matter Annihilation in Galaxy Groups.

We use 413 weeks of publicly available Fermi Pass 8 gamma-ray data combined with recently developed galaxy group catalogs to search for evidence of dark matter annihilation in extragalactic halos. In our study, we use luminosity-based mass estimates and mass-to-concentration relations to infer the J factors and associated uncertainties for hundreds of galaxy groups within a redshift range z≲0.03. We employ a conservative substructure boost factor model, which only enhances the sensitivity by an O(1) factor. No significant evidence for dark matter annihilation is found, and we exclude thermal relic cross sections for dark matter masses below ∼30 GeV to 95% confidence in the bb[over ¯] annihilation channel. These bounds are comparable to those from Milky Way dwarf spheroidal satellite galaxies. The results of our analysis increase the tension but do not rule out the dark matter interpretation of the Galactic Center excess. We provide a catalog of the galaxy groups used in this study and their inferred properties, which can be broadly applied to searches for extragalactic dark matter.

γ-ray Constraints on Decaying Dark Matter and Implications for IceCube.

Utilizing the Fermi measurement of the γ-ray spectrum toward the Inner Galaxy, we derive some of the strongest constraints to date on the dark matter (DM) lifetime in the mass range from hundreds of MeV to above an EeV. Our profile-likelihood-based analysis relies on 413 weeks of Fermi Pass 8 data from 200 MeV to 2 TeV, along with up-to-date models for diffuse γ-ray emission within the Milky Way. We model Galactic and extragalactic DM decay and include contributions to the DM-induced γ-ray flux resulting from both primary emission and inverse-Compton scattering of primary electrons and positrons. For the extragalactic flux, we also calculate the spectrum associated with cascades of high-energy γ rays scattering off of the cosmic background radiation. We argue that a decaying DM interpretation for the 10 TeV-1 PeV neutrino flux observed by IceCube is disfavored by our constraints. Our results also challenge a decaying DM explanation of the AMS-02 positron flux. We interpret the results in terms of individual final states and in the context of simplified scenarios such as a hidden-sector glueball model.

The dark matter interpretation of the 3.5-keV line is inconsistent with blank-sky observations.

Observations of nearby galaxies and galaxy clusters have reported an unexpected x-ray emission line around 3.5 kilo-electron volts (keV). Proposals to explain this line include decaying dark matter-in particular, that the decay of sterile neutrinos with a mass around 7 keV could match the available data. If this interpretation is correct, the 3.5-keV line should also be emitted by dark matter in the halo of the Milky Way. We used more than 30 megaseconds of XMM-Newton (X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission) blank-sky observations to test this hypothesis, finding no evidence of the 3.5-keV line emission from the Milky Way halo. We set an upper limit on the decay rate of dark matter in this mass range, which is inconsistent with the possibility that the 3.5-keV line originates from dark matter decay.